Apple Bans Rogue Developer: Confirms iTunes Fraud

Apple has finally stepped in to put an end to the increasing incidents of fraudulent purchases in the iTunes App Store. Last week, we reported that someone called Thuat Nguyen was purchasing his own applications using hacked iTunes accounts. In fact, apps developed by Nguyen managed to claim 42 of the top 50 spots in the App Store rankings for the Books category.

Apple has now banned Thuat Nguyen and issued the following statement to Engadget:

The developer Thuat Nguyen and his apps were removed from the App Store for violating the developer Program License Agreement, including fraudulent purchase patterns.

Developers do not receive any iTunes confidential customer data when an app is downloaded.

If your credit card or iTunes password is stolen and used on iTunes we recommend that you contact your financial institution and inquire about canceling the card and issuing a chargeback for any unauthorized transactions. We also recommend that you change your iTunes account password immediately. For more information on best practices for password security visit http://www.apple.com/support/itunes.

According to Clayton Morris, about four hundred iTunes accounts were compromised. Apple’s statement indicates that the hacking resulted out of callousness on the part of the user and not due some inherent vulnerability in iTunes. Nevertheless, Apple will be beefing up its security measures to make it harder for hacked accounts to be exploited.

Published by

Pallab De

Pallab De is a blogger from India who has a soft spot for anything techie. He loves trying out new software and spends most of his day breaking and fixing his PC. Pallab loves participating in the social web; he has been active in technology forums since he was a teenager and is an active user of both twitter (@indyan) and facebook . View all posts by Pallab De